Amazing Stories — page 61: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE ANCIENT HORROR 59 with it the assurance of better conditions of living for me, for I had been unable to secure suitable quar- ters in any of the farm homes outside of Hampton. I conjectured that, if Wilson’s place suited my fancy, I could very likely make arrangements with him which would enable me to remain at his place in- definitely. I did succeed in doing so and, who knows but that I might have met with the same unpleasant experience he did, had not Fate willed it otherwise. “Adventure, like romance, lies just around the corner.. One does not need to go to Africa, as these scientists are doing, in order to: find adventure any more than it is necessary to go to Europe for ro- mance, and the adventure ahead of me that summer day, as I sat in Wilson’s rattling Flivver, en route to his place, was very real. No other man ever lived through an experience more bizarre, more horrible than the one that was waiting for me, at Wilson’s place. “It didn’t take us long to cover the distance be- tween Hampton and the farm which, even with most of the tillable land under water, was a beautiful place. That part of the property covered with the water from the reservoir had been practically the only really flat land in the whole estate; the rest was rolling and hilly, and for the most part, covered with timber. ‘The lake lay almost in the center of the ‘farm,’ as Wilson called it and, while it completely ruined the farm for agriculture, it added immensely to its charm and beauty. Roughly oval and nearly a mile in dianteter, it twinkled in its bed like a great sapphire encircled with emeralds. Owing to its depth, which, according to Wilson’s estimate, was some- thing about five hundred feet, the water would re- main cold always, which made it an ideal place for any trout which entered from the creek, to live and breed in. “T said as much to Wilson that evening after sup- per. Evidently, he had never thought of such a thing; his mind was centered upon his loss. He mulled the thing over in his mind for a moment, and as the possibilities of such a proposition grew upon him, he said, ‘if that danged lake had fish in it, I wouldn’t take any price you could name for it. I could get more out of the water then than I ever got out of the land and still own it.’ And I knew he was right. Given fish, he had the world by the tail. It would make a.wonderful summer resort, for cottages could be built along the lake which would bring high rent for the season. He surely needed fish, €6 AND the fish came, but not until we had about given up all hope that they would. I had become Wilson’s star boarder, for he had invited me to stay there as long as I liked, as his guest. I spent the days helping Wilson keep house. He was a widower for,some years, and wandered about the lake, looking for signs of fish, “Then, one afternoon, just at sun-down, I saw one lkap out of the water. I shouted to Wilson, who answered the call on the run and got there in time to see another one jump up out of the blue depths. He gripped my arm and said, ‘Rutherford, I shall need some help, financially. go in with me, we'll split the profits. What do you say?’ I thought the matter over for a moment, then told him I'd furnish the needed capital. We stayed there, at the side of the lake, until dark, talking the matter over and watching the ‘dollars,’ as Wil- If you want to — son was pleased to call the trout, jump out of the water, We then went back to the house to make further plans for the next season. “Two weeks later we had a dozen summer cottages well on the road toward completion. to build more, later, but we figured a dozen, to start with, would be sufficient, which shows how nearly a couple of greenhorns can come to making a correct guess. We could have rented a hundred, if we had them. Later I wished I had never thought of build- ing a single cottage. But who could have dreamed of such consequence? “The cottages, which were erected on a sufficiently large, cleared space, on the southeast shore of the lake, were completed before the cold weather set in, and after closing the board shutters over the win- dows to protect them from possible breakage, we devoted our time to planning a campaign for the Spring. “Winter passed reluctantly it seemed to Wilson and me, but it gave way to Spring: at last and shortly after I went to the city. There I had a series of talks ~ with certain dealers in fish, which resulted, as soon as the fishing season opened, in a big window display of strings of trout that made the disciples of Isaac Walton almost wild to swing a fly over their habitat. A carefully worded legend that accompanied the dis- play gave the necessary information. The season opened with all our cottages occupied and we were making money. PON ene shortly after, we began to hear strange noises, in the night. If we had been very near a seaport town I should have thought the sound, though rather sharp, was given by a ship’s siren. However, since we were better than eighteen hundred miles from the ocean, and a thousand miles from any other body of water large enough to float a ship, we concluded that it was a particularly awful whistle on the railroad, that ran some three miles to-the west of us. It bothered us for about a week, then, like all other noises that occur at frequent intervals, it ceased to bother us much. There was some specula- tion among the cottagers but, when we told them it probably came from some engine, they accepted the statement for fact, and forgot all about it. Be- sides, what does a little noise amount to when the fishing is good? And it was. “There was only one fault to be found with our lake, or its environment. Owing to the altitude and the added fact that it lay so deep down among the hills, the nights were too chilly to permit of comfort on the lake after dark. However, there was plenty of warmth during the daytime, so it didn’t matter so very much. “Along about the first part of July, however, we had a stretch of very hot weather. The warmth con- tinued well into the night, and the early evening hours found the lake pretty well dotted with boats and canoes, passing back and forth near the shore and pretty well out into the lake. . “The first break in the calm order of our lives came one evening, during this hot spell. Wilson and I were down at the lake, cleaning some trout we ~ had caught. It was about eight, or a little later and it was getting dark rapidly. twilight. We had just finished our job when a long, agonizing scream, as one in mortal anguish, came vibrating over the lake, from some point down in the southwester x oe = comicbooks. - ~ We expected - We had practically no”